MSNBC panelist urges Obama to speak out more after ‘toughen up’ comments

An MSNBC panelist urged former President Barack Obama to speak out more often on Saturday after he urged members of his party to “toughen up” at a recent fundraiser. 

“I know he’s done being president, and many will say he doesn’t owe us anything else, but I think if we are in a moment of crisis, and you’ve ever led this country, you should still care about this country enough to be out there. I’ve had this crazy thought that if every time Donald Trump did something crazy or said something crazy, Barack Obama should have a press conference or something,” Shaniqua McClendon, the vice president of political strategy at Crooked Media, said during MSNBC’s “The Weekend.”

McClendon agreed with Obama’s recent suggestion that Democrats should “toughen up,” but urged the former president to get out there more himself as someone who served as president.

“He is someone who can command attention. And so part of where I don’t think it’s fair is, most Democrats are not Barack Obama. They can’t command attention the way he can. And we’re in a media environment that even if you are fighting, if no one hears you, it’s not worth anything. People listen to him. So I do think it’s fair,” McClendon continued.

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During a July fundraiser, Obama suggested members of the party should stop complaining so much.

“I think it’s going to require a little bit less navel-gazing and a little less whining and being in fetal positions. And it’s going to require Democrats to just toughen up,” Obama said at the fundraiser, according to excerpts obtained by CNN. “Don’t tell me you’re a Democrat, but you’re kind of disappointed right now, so you’re not doing anything. No, now is exactly the time that you get in there and do something.”

MSNBC host Catherine Rampell wondered if Obama would be accused of sucking up all the oxygen if he was out there more. 

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“He probably would be accused of that. But those people are not pushing through right now,” McClendon said. 

She suggested some Democrats, such as Reps. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., were breaking through, but most were not.

“The point now is that we are in a really dire situation… Our rights are being taken away every day. And if Barack Obama is someone who can push back on that and at least get people to pay attention to the fact that that’s happening, it matters a lot. And so, yeah, I think that is not an argument, I wish that was the thing we had to worry about,” she added. 

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Hosts of “The View” criticized Obama’s advice, arguing that Democrats had been out there fighting against Trump.